The previous evening, when they had dined alone together, Rene had worn slacks and a silk shirt, and his carelessly knotted neckerchief. Tonight, with the arrival of his guests, and as master in his own house, he wore a beautifully fitting dinner-jacket. He departed from the strict masculine convention of black and white by tucking a crimson silk handkerchief in at the end of his sleeve, and he robbed the table decorations in the dining room of a dark red carnation and attached it to the lapel of his jacket.
The effect was striking, slightly rakish, and foreign, and Jane found that her gaze became riveted to him for a few uncontrollable seconds. When he looked up as if he could sense just how uncontrollable it was, and sent her an oblique, dark, half-smiling glance, she remembered the pink carnation he had bought her that morning - the single carnation that had cost him a thousand francs - and remembered that she had left it in his car. It was wilting - perhaps quite dead by now - in a little tray below the dashboard.
She and Mark Lanyard sat beside one another at dinner, and they talked because they had quite a lot in common. He was a very pleasant young man, in addition to having a high degree of the good looks essential to the one who followed his profession, and was always awarded the virtuous, valorous parts. He was the knight-errant, the man who never failed the heroine, the gentlemanly, kindly, chivalrous type who didn’t always win in the end, even although he deserved to do so. And by comparison with Rene Delaroche - or as a foil for Rene Delaroche - his admirable qualities were almost too good to be true, and made Rene seem almost sinister.
In the film they were to make Rene was to play the part of a gypsy-cum-circus entertainer, and Mark was the straight lead. On this occasion Mark would win in the end, but Rene would steal the show, and it would be his gay, cracked voice - that could be so silken and soft at times - and his strange, vital personality and arresting darkness that would bring the rewards to the box-office.
Jane had known Mark for six months now - the same length of time that she had known Sandra - and she was perfectly well aware what his ambition was. Not merely to succeed in films, but to persuade Sandra to marry him.
Frequently Jane had been surprised because Sandra, although she obviously liked him very much indeed, seemed disinclined to take the final step and become Mrs. Mark Lanyard, at any rate off the screen. Tonight she had said that she didn’t quite know what it was that she wanted from life, but Jane had a fairly shrewd idea. She wanted a certain amount of domesticity in her life, because that was the way she was made, but she also wanted to be admired, and made much of. And not merely by one man. Even Val Wade, who would soon be in his fifties, when he took her out to dinner and bought her orchids, or gave a party for her in his flat, could make her forget Mark Lanyard for the length of time that the celebration lasted. Such a vital personality as Delaroche, whom she had met for the first time in America nearly a year before could make her temporarily believe that she was completely captivated by him.
And Delaroche had made enough money to retire and live in absolute comfort for the rest of his days. He need never make another recording, or another film - and it was known that he wasn’t very fond of making films - or appear before another live audience, unless he badly wanted to do so. But Mark was not in the same fortunate class, and he would have to go on working for years yet, or permit Sandra to support him. And it was perhaps not unreasonable that Sandra had dreams of being supported in luxury by someone who could also make it possible for her to retire from film life if she felt like it.
Jane watched her and Rene getting on excellently together at the table, and realized that she herself wasn’t the only one who found it difficult to dispose of the many courses that make up a long-drawn-out French evening meal. Although Jeanne had excelled herself, and most of the dishes were, as Sandra kept declaring blithely “Out of this world!”, Jane had absolutely no appetite for them. Her appetite seemed to have come to an end with the lunch she had consumed that day. And Mark’s appetite wasn’t much better.
It must have struck him, as it struck Jane, that Sandra and her host were the perfect complement to one another, so far, at least, as looks were concerned. Sandra was brilliant as a butterfly, fair as gossamer, alert as a spring breeze when it came to repartee; and Rene had the same quick silver mentality, the same humour that could force its way up through anything, allied to an entirely opposite type of looks. Dark, forceful, vigorous restless, dominating.
Listening to them laughing at one another’s jokes - Rene making open fun of Sandra’s worse-than-schoolgirl French, without arousing in her any resentment whatsoever, and Sandra mocking his Continental gestures - realizing that they sparked one another off, like a couple of fireworks, and withal they obviously admired one another immensely. Jane had sympathy for the flat feeling in the breast of the man beside her, who was trying to keep her entertained. And occasionally she wondered a little at the detachment of Madame Heloise, who sent long, dark glances sideways at Sandra, and answered with the fewest words possible whenever Sandra spoke to her.
After dinner Sandra led Rene over to the magnificent grand piano that filled a corner of the salon. Jane had admired this piano from the moment of her arrival, but she hadn’t dared to touch it because it was the property of a man she didn’t know, and he might resent it if she did. Now she was glad that she hadn’t touched it - that she had seen no one touch it but Rene - for his slim, brown, shapely fingers were the only fingers, she thought, that had any right to rest upon the keyboard.
He was a pianist who knew how to pluck the heart out of a piano. His touch had something magical about it, and as soon as he broke into a Chopin waltz, while Sandra was urging him to try out the numbers he was to sing in the new film, Jane understood why his hands had always fascinated her. Now, although she loved listening to his records, she felt that she couldn’t bear it if he started to sing in that unforgettable voice she had imagined she heard in her bath, while she was still in the room, and she moved impulsively toward the open french window, and Mark followed her. Perhaps it was because Sandra was sharing the double piano stool with Rene, and the two of them seemed to have forgotten everyone else in the room.
Val Wade had fallen asleep with a brandy at his elbow, and a book of French fables he had unearthed from the library, before Madame Heloise made it clear that the room was her domain, in his lap, and the tapping of the typewriter came from the library to accompany the piano.
“Let’s try a breath of night air, shall we?” Mark suggested, and seemed relieved as soon as he was outside. “Whew! I haven’t got used yet to the difference in temperature here. When we left England it was cold enough for an early fall of snow, in Paris it was rather milder, Here we seem to have run into a kind of Indian summer.”
They wandered across the courtyard, past the pool on which the water-lilies floated, and along paths that by now were familiar to Jane. But when she knew they were nearing a corner of the grounds that had something more than mere familiarity to commend itself to her, and where the moon’s rays glistened on a certain bronze faun she took Mark by the arm and guided him away from it.
“Over here there’s a copy of an Elizabethan pleasaunce,” she said. “It’s quite attractive by moonlight, even if you can’t see all the details.”
Mark consented to be directed in another direction, and suddenly he remarked moodily: “Charming fellow, Delaroche ... Hospitable, generous, amusing. But there are times when I’d like to break his neck, and tonight was one of them!” His voice was slightly savage.
Jane slipped a hand inside his arm, and squeezed it sympathetically. “Poor Mark! ... But you know Sandra has been dying to get here, and see this house and everything connected with it. She has to be particularly attentive to her host, when he’s invited her to stop here.”
“Delaroche doesn’t require attentiveness from his guests. He’s too used to entertaining all sorts and conditions of people. And that’s what this house is for - entertaining people!”
“It’s a lovely old house,”
she said.
“I’d appreciate it much better if it was in England,” Mark admitted. “I’m one of those insular people who don’t honestly enjoy foreign travel.” He looked back at the house, light against the dark shapes of the trees. “But I suppose you could be right, it has got something! And Rene has had it titivated up regardless, of course! Regardless of cost, regardless of taste, if you’re oppressed by too much luxury ... And that’s an odd thing about Rene! In his early life I don’t think he had much of it. His people were farming people, you know, and his mother was just an ordinary Basque peasant. I think he probably takes after her, where his looks are concerned, at any rate.”
Jane remembered that she had associated Rene - or Etienne as he had been to her then - with the Basque country from the moment he turned his night-dark eyes upon her.
But Mark continued moodily at her side. “Of course he’s a remarkable man,” he admitted. “And I’d be the last person to want to dispute it if it wasn’t for Sandra. Sandra, however, is so painfully obvious, and she can’t refrain from longing to put salt on the tail of every lion with whom she comes in contact. Sometimes they’re not even full-grown lions, but if they’re heading that way it’s usually enough.”
“But Rene Delaroche is a full-grown lion in his way.”
“Yes. And being a Continental he knows how to soften the roar, and women fall for that muted charm of his. It is a muted charm, for he doesn’t attempt to deceive them with any he-man tricks, and not many of them know about his past record. He’s modest, and he doesn’t like any references to his past to be made in any write-ups about him.” He looked down at Jane’s bright head with a sudden odd smile. “And even you, Jane, went off with him for the day!”
“It was nothing,” she said coolly. “Just a drive in a car.”
“Because you both had time to kill? Well, that’s like Rene ... He hates to be bored! But I’ve never known Sandra quite so livid as she was when she arrived here to find there was no one to welcome her on the doorstep - not even her faithful little secretary! She has an idea that in addition to being extremely efficient you’re not the impressionable type, and to discover that you’d gone off with the man of the moment was quite a shock! She said some harsh things about you, I don’t mind telling you, until you showed up. If you hadn’t shown up when you did she probably would have said a great deal more!”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” Jane said.
“Well, it wasn’t your fault. She was temporarily diverted by the Vicomte chap in Paris, but he quickly palled. And as you said, she’s been dying to get here ... But concentrating on Delaroche won’t get her anywhere! The fellow’s not interested in women - not seriously. They run after him, and he probably enjoys it, but she’ll be a very clever woman indeed who traps him into matrimony. He was married once - or so I’ve heard - and the affair ended rather tragically, I believe.”
“You mean his wife died?”
“Yes; I think she died. Some people say he has a daughter.”
“He has a daughter,” Jane heard herself corroborating that statement in a strangely quiet voice. “I’ve seen her photograph.”
“Then you’ve seen more than most of us.” Once again Mark looked down at her, and this time his expression was a little quizzical. “Did he-by any chance show you the photograph himself? If he did, I wouldn’t let Sandra know! She’d think that you’d definitely scored over her!”
But Jane disillusioned him. “I just happened to see the photograph by accident,” she explained.
“I see. I’ll admit that for one moment I wondered whether you were making more progress than the usual run, even our glamorous Sandra.”
Jane put back her head and looked up at him with her big brown eyes. “Can you imagine that possible?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” He put an arm around her, and gave her a little hug. They had turned, and were walking back to the house, and the moonlight poured over them. “You’re tremendously sweet, you know, and if I weren’t so obsessed in another direction I might begin to think of you seriously myself! In fact, if Sandra definitely turns me down I’ll come to you for sympathy!”
He was joking, she knew, for Sandra was in his blood, and would stay there, but it was rather nice to be told she was “tremendously sweet”. It was the second time that day, and she wondered wistfully how far being tremendously sweet would get her.
Her brown eyes must have reflected a little of that wistfulness, for Mark stopped and kissed her lightly on the cheek. ‘That’s for a good girl!” he said.
She smiled, quite undisturbed by the kiss, in spite of the fact that he was such a very personable young man and multitudes of his fans would have envied her. And then they were once more crossing the courtyard, and a shadow moved to greet them. It was their host, smoking a cigarette.
“A nice night for a stroll,” he remarked. “Just the right sort of night!” He looked with strange enigmatic eyes at Jane. “I hope you both enjoyed it?”
Mark allowed his arm to drop from Jane’s shoulders. “I don’t know about Jane,” he answered, “but I certainly did!”
“But where is Sandra?” Jane asked, determined not to be disconcerted by that black, veiled gaze of her host - was there something reproachful behind it? she wondered. “You were running over songs at the piano when we left.”
“She had a telephone call from Paris,” Rene explained, grinding his heel on his half-smoked cigarette after he had flung it away. “An admirer, I imagine,” with detached dryness.
‘That’ll be the fellow who’s been pestering her while we were there,” Mark offered as some sort of explanation.
Rene made a little movement with his hands. ‘To be as beautiful as Mademoiselle Sandra is to be pestered by half the world! What can you expect?” he asked, and spread his hands.
“If you’ll forgive me, I’m going to bed,” Jane said, and tried to slip away hurriedly, but her host prevented her.
“So soon?” he asked, placing himself firmly in her path.
“Yes, I’m - tired.”
Suddenly she looked tired, with a small, pale face, and over-large eyes. She felt emotionally exhausted, appalled by the curious foreboding she had of bitter unhappiness in the future and filled with an urge to escape from them all. To pack a suitcase tonight and steal away out of La Cause Perdue ... The Lost Cause! Why should a house be named after a lost cause?
“Then of course you must go to bed,” Rene said softly, gently, and stood aside from her path.
He made no attempt to put out his hand and claim hers in a handshake, or even to amplify his good night. And as she made her way up the richly carved staircase she heard Sandra swing open the glass door of the telephone- cabinet in the hall, and call loudly, clearly, as if she was impatient: “Rene! Rene, where are you? You promised to show me your garden by moonlight!...”
Jane reached her own room, and locked her door. It was a thing she seldom did, for she hated sleeping behind locked doors; but tonight she couldn’t have borne it if Sandra had come along later on to disturb her. Sandra, or - anyone else!
Though of course no one else was likely to come anywhere near her room.
CHAPTER VIII
Within a couple of days everyone seemed to have overcome the strangeness of arrival and settled down very comfortably in Rene’s farmhouse. It was Sandra who constantly referred to it as “Rene’s farmhouse”, although strictly speaking it was no longer in any sense of the word a farmhouse. The days when the clangour of milking pails sounded in the yard, and the big granary served the purpose for which it was built, were over; and looking from her window on fine mornings and seeing Sandra in her pale shorts and the colourful shirts which she wore outside them - or, in order to ring the changes, slacks and a chest-hugging cashmere sweater - Jane found herself wondering what the ancient timbers thought and felt about such a sight as that. Particularly when Sandra, who although diminutive was beautifully proportioned, went around hanging on to the arm of her host, who also lo
oked as if never in his life had he had anything to do with agriculture.
Sometimes they rode, hiring mounts from a near-by stables, and on these occasions Sandra wore primrose jodhpurs, and looked as if she was already on a carefully prepared “set”. Rene looked the part on a horse, being quite plainly at home in the saddle, which Sandra was not, and the animal she bestrode had to be carefully selected for her.
Jane was invited to accompany them the first time they went riding, but she refused because already she was settling back into her regular routine of secretary to a young woman who paid her well. And no one could say that Sandra wasn’t generous. She was also not in the least exacting, but she could make herself quite clear on occasions. As for instance, when she intimated to Jane that, although she herself was enjoying a well-earned vacation before starting work on the new script, and getting caught up once more in the familiar whirl of camera-men and clapper boys, Jane still had her duties to perform. And the slight interruption caused by getting themselves across to France had inevitably resulted in an inconvenient slipping of the regular routine.
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